Excited to board the plane!! I have waited for years to be able to go to Europe and finally two amazing co-workers said "yes". Amber Sherwood and Dawn Bess agreed to be my travel buddies to backpack Europe for 3 weeks!
Tower Bridge! We arrived in London, United Kingdom, on August 9, 2013, 9:30am and after finding our hotel, we picked up our London Pass and hit the city.
Big Ben and the Parliament buildings on the banks of the Thames River.
Big Ben!!
Zoomed in view of the clock on Big Ben! I love the green and gold detailed work.
I love red telephone booths!!
A guard at Buckingham Palace!
Buckingham Palace! Lucky for us, the Queen is out of her palace during August and September, so we had the opportunity to tour the royal residence. It was beautiful!
We tried to go through the platform to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry but we hit the brick wall. I love the picture and enjoyed platform 9 3/4!
We took the train through the channel and arrived in Paris, France! Notre Dame was breathtaking!
I put my zoom lens on my camera and captured many cool looking gargoyles!
This gargoyle is the most famous one. He has his tongue sticking out and overlooks Paris.
Eiffel Tower, ahhhh!!
I found the detail work on the bottom arch to be beautiful, never knew it was so detailed.
On our second day in France, we took the train out to Caen to take a tour of the beaches and historic sites in Normandy. Here are some German bunkers overlooking the English Channel.
A German bunker. Notice all the metal rebar, it makes for one secure place to hide.
We went to the American Cemetery where 40% of the Americans who died at Normandy were buried. The other 60% were taken back to their hometowns by family choice. This tombstone is of an unknown hero, known only to God.
A view of the west from Pointe du Hoc. Beautiful!
Inside the bunker...
Omaha Beach, not much of a war scene, but lots of people tanning and playing in the water.
A selfie at the American Cemetery! I love my sunglasses.
I'm in a crater from a bomb explosion!
Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, what an amazing building!! Words can't describe.
The back grounds of Versailles.
The gardens behind Versailles were amazing, I loved the sculptures.
After Versailles we took the train back into the city and after a stop to buy myself a new jacket (lost my North Face jacket on our first day in London) we entered the great building known as the Louvre Museum. I've waited for years to see a few magnificent pieces of art in this building.
I loved this view, coming into the museum and seeing Nike of Samothrace raised up, front and center, almost caused my heart to stop! What a site!
The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, it is about as small as I had heard, but what still gets me is why is such a simple painting so famous!?! Her eyes follow you? Self portrait? The secret she holds in her eyes?
Venus de Milo, stunning! I didn't realize it had been created between 130 and 100 BC...awesome!
Cupid and Psyche, I loved the tender way they're holding one another and the detailed work in the cloth.
After our third day in Paris, we took the train to Brussels, Belgium. Here we are in Grand Place, town hall. This square is home to the floral carpet event, but of course it's every other year and we came on the off year. Sad :( They did have these trees with flowers set up for a smaller floral event.
They had a flower nursery set up in the square at Grand Place.
We bought belgian waffels and oh were they amazing!! I love how big the bottles of Nutella are, everything in Europe can be bought with Nutella on it!
Mannekin Pis, the peeing boy of Brussels. He has a female counterpart and you can only guess how she is peeing. Yup!
My waffle, covered in whip cream, strawberries and drizzled with chocolate! Oh it was good!
On our second day in Belgium, we took the train up north to Bruges and Gent. I loved the pointed brick buildings in Bruges and the horse drawn carriages. I would spend more time here on a future trip.
Our next train took us to Utrecht, Netherlands. We found our hotel, stowed our luggage, and took another train up to Zaanse Schans, a cute village with a wooden shoe factory, cheese factory, and old windmills to tour. Dawn and I were very excited for the wooden shoes!!
Look...my big feet found bigger shoes!!
The big yellow wooden shoe and beautiful countryside!
After our afternoon at Zaanse Schans, we took the train back to Amsterdam to tour Anne Frank's house. The canals were spectacular, streets in their own way.
The bell tower at the cathedral that Anne talks about in her diary of hearing all the time. Her house, or their hiding spot for nearly 2 years, is the third in from the left. It was cool to see how close her place really was to the bell tower.
On our second day in the Netherlands, we found an LDS church to attend sacrament at and afterwards we took the metro and a bus out to Kinderdijk. It's an area of 19 windmills dating back to 1740. We rented bikes for 2 hours, rickety old bikes, and had a great time. It was so beautiful, I was in photographer heaven!
My favorite photo!! I was so thrilled to notice the reflection in the water.
The Glockenspiel in Munich, Germany!! Lifesize cuckoo clock!
On our first day in Munich, we took the train up to the Dachau Concentration Camp. It was a somber feeling to be there. I've researched the holocaust a lot over the years and to actually be there was unreal.
Barracks and the roll call area.
International Monument dedicated in 1968.
On our second day in Munich, we took the train out to Fussen to see the castles of Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. The swan is a symbol of the Bavarian Royalty, which we found out during the tour and thought it was cool there was one out on the lake near the castles.
A view from Neuschwanstein, overlooking Hohenschwangau and the lake. Just beautiful!
Neuschwanstein!! We took a hike up and around the castle to a bridge to take pictures of this spectacular view!
Salzburg, Austria!! The next stop on our journey. A postcard view, top is the old fortress and the building with the red top on the left is the abbey from "The Sound of Music".
The trio on our bikes at the Sound of Music bike tour! We had been excited for months for this tour! An 8 mile bike ride through Salzburg and the countryside took us to 8+ sites from the movie. Namely the abbey, the horse fountain, front of the house villa, back of the house villa, and gazebo. Did you know they used 2 villas to film the Von Trapp house? Salzburg wanted to have them show off their 2 nicest villas.
Outside the abbey where they filmed the Nazis drove away in their car and where Grettel and siblings came to find Maria and she showed the Nun her hurt finger.
The lake and villa (back of the Von Trapp house) where Maria and the kids are in the boat and it tips over in front of the Captain and friends.
The villa (front of the Von Trapp house).
The gazebo!! So many people were dancing on the benches inside that they had to lock the doors.
Gimmelwald, Switzerland! I loved Switzerland. We took a train to Lauterbrunnen and from there we took a bus to the tram. Now this tram went up the mountain, to Gimmelwald. We stayed in a hostel on top of a mountain!! It was beautiful, glaciers on the mountain peaks, waterfalls everywhere, and cows with bells around their necks. Loved it!
A beautiful wildflower at Gimmelwald.
The houses and farms were built on hillsides in areas I didn't think houses could be built on.
Venice, Italy! We met a couple from Texas on the train from Milan who were really nice and we shared our journey thus far with them. They took this picture of us outside the train station at the Grand Canal.
A gandoleer! I was so excited to see them, it's really Venice!
The Leaning Tower of Pisa! So here's our story! We literally had 5-7 minutes to take pictures there, sad, I know. We had heard the tower was near the train station, but "near" ended up being a descent 20 minute walk. So by the time we found the tower, we needed to be back to the train station to catch our train to Cinque Terre within 30 minutes. We quickly took pictures at our "short photo shoot" and then we walked and ran back to the train station. But as we got there, we discovered our train had been delayed 15 minutes. Ahhhh! We were bummed, we could've spent more time at the tower.
The coast of Cinque Terre! Cinque Terre is comprised of 5 villages on the west coast of Italy. The houses are all painted different colors and when mixed together are a site to see!
Vernazza! This village was affected by a flood in 2011 and has since rebuilt it's beautiful village. We hiked up and around to catch this view.
Ponte Vecchio, a beautiful bridge in Florence housed (literally) with fancy jewelry shops.
In Florence, we had tickets to the Accademia and the Uffizi. I was thrilled to be there! I love art history and to be there and see certain original pieces of art, was amazing. But in between we toured the cathedral of the Duomo.
Florence!!
Italian pizza!!
Once in Rome, our B&B hostess told us water from the fountains was ok to drink. We enjoyed filling our water bottles up and it tasted really good!
St. Peter's Basilica! It was kind of surreal that we were there.
Laocoon and his Sons!! At the Vatican Museum...amazing!
The Pantheon, complete with horse carriages!
Gelato!! We had no problem indulging in this succulent treat at least twice a day! We really liked this one place in Rome by the Trevi Fountain, so we retraced our steps on our second day there and found it. They put whipped cream and a small cone on it. So much better!
The Colosseum!! I have waited forever to see this place. It was my most, the most anticipated place to see on this trip. And it held up to my expectations. Once in the Colosseum, it began to rain and so we took shelter for about 30 minutes until it stopped and then we resumed taking photos. I loved it! I tried to envision naval battles flooding the Colosseum and Gladiator battles.
I loved Europe!! I left plenty to see and plenty I want to see again! Ciao!
